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Gordon Kennedy, U.S. Army, Korea/Vietnam (Interviewed Jan. 29, 2009) Gordon Kennedy had seen a lot of the world during his 31 years of military service. Service that included a 15-month tour during in Korea during that War, and then a year in Saigon, near the end of the Vietnam War. When he left his final tour of duty, in Jamaica, he had hardly even heard of Bryan, Texas...It was his next duty assignment as an intelligence specialist. He and his wife Lucille were married some 60 years.
Jim Saunders, U.S. Army, Vietnam (Interviewed Jan. 22, 2009) For 17 years Jim and Doris Saunders owned and operated Saunders Sausage Shop in South College Station. Since they sold the business in 1983, they’ve enjoyed retirement, much of it viewed out the windows of their well-traveled RV. Jim and Doris met after his World War II service in the 1st Cavalry F Troop; stationed in the Philippines near the war’s end. He was on one of the ships at Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945 when the peace treaty was signed on the USS Missouri and it was his band of brothers in F Company that served as General Douglas MacArthur’s honor guard on his march into Tokyo six days later.
Mark White, U.S. Army, Iraq (A&M Class of 2003) (Interviewed December 4, 2008) Mark White was deployed in Iraq as a member of Alpha Company 111th Engineer Battalion. His job was security, as he helped arrange and provide security for visiting government officials, Presidents, and even Hollywood stars. The detail involved in these visits will surprise people. It was his job to make sure the visits went smoothly.
Gen. Joe Hanover, U.S. Army, WW II (A&M Class of ‘40) (Interviewed Nov. 20, 2008) Gen. Joe Hanover lived in the Brazos Valley most of his life. He spent the last 25 years of his service with the 420th Engineering Brigade on Carson Street in Bryan. He was already in uniform when Pearl Harbor was attacked in Dec. 1941. Immediately following he was assigned to duty in San Francisco, under the Golden Gate Bridge. He was a Civil Engineer with Coast Artillery. Then he headed up a combat engineering unit and eventually was sent to Europe in 1945. (As I type this, we mourn Gen. Hanover’s death yesterday, May 22, 2017, at the age of 99).
Bob Bruner, U.S. Army, Desert Storm (Interviewed Nov. 6, 2008) Four months may not seem like a long time to most of us, but for Bob Bruner of the 1st Squadron 4th Cavalry, US Army, the four months starting on New Year's Day of 1991 was a period in time he'll never forget. Bob Bruner drove a Hum-vee in Operation Desert Storm’s ground war and saw the war up close from start to finish. Yes his was his unit that took the airfield at Safwan, Iraq where the ceasefire was negotiated.
Dan Chadbourne, U.S. Marines, World War II (Interviewed Oct. 23, 2008) Dan Chadbourne flew the PBJB-25 Mitchell in World War II. His first wish was to be a tail gunner on a SBT-Dauntless. Instead he was a radio gunner on the B-25. He flew 38 Missions in the Pacific Theater in 1945. His 443rd Marine bombing squadron would strafe and bomb and serve as an escort for the fighters of the 1st Marine Wing in Okinawa -- Operation Iceberg.
LeRoy Schoenemann, Army Air Corps, WW II (Interviewed Oct.9, 2008) After Leroy Schoenemann graduated from Snook High School in 1941 his first stop, Guadalcanal, as a member of the 64th Troop Carrier Wing piloting C-47s just about everywhere and carrying just about everything. He eventually went from C-47s to B-47s and that was quite a leap. After World War II he was reactivated and spent most of the Korean War at a lonely outpost in Libya. Here is Lt. Col. Leroy Schoenemann.
Col Alton Meyer, Air Force, Vietnam P.O.W. (A&M Class of ‘60) (Interviewed Sept. 28, 2005) It was six years of life he will never get back but Lt. Col. Al Meyer of rural College Station will certainly never forget that time from the Spring of 1967 to 1973 that he spent as a captive of the North Vietnamese Army -- a P.O.W. Sitting in the back seat of his F-105, he was shot out of the sky. His pilot didn’t survive. His wife Bobbie didn’t know for three years that he was alive at the Hanoi Hilton, as the prison camp was called. It’s an amazing story of physical and mental victory.
Gerald McCaskill, U.S. Navy, WW II (Interviewed September 18, 2008) When Gerald McCaskill boarded the Battleship USS Tennessee in June of 1944, it was the first ship he had ever seen. He would see plenty of it over the next 15 months, including combat action throughout World War II’s Pacific theater. The Tennessee had already seen plenty of warfare, including on 7 December 1941, docked at Pearl Harbor alongside the ill-fated West Virginia and Arizona on that day that will live in infamy. Over HIS time on the Tennessee, it’s travels took it to Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Guadalcanal, Palau, the Philippines, back to Pearl Harbor and Saipan and within a mile of the beaches of Iwo Jima for that Marine invasion to Mt. Suribachi.. on to Okinawa, and eventually to Japan. The Tennessee was badly damaged at least twice after the attack on Pearl Harbor, an attack at Tinian and later a suicide attack to the quarterdeck.
Gen. Ted Hopgood, Marines, Vietnam (Interviewed Sept. 4, 2008) General Ted Hopgood’s 31-year career in the Marine Corps was followed by six years as Commandant of Cadets at Texas A&M. He had three tours of Vietnam, the first one with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines Kilo Company on the ground, in combat. One of his earliest battles was the most intense. His recollections of his career are vivid, especially his time in the National Military Command Center during the start of Operation Desert Storm.
